The surprising, stealth rebirth of the American arcade

Nostalgia and alcohol fuel a gaming comeback.

We might be living in the era of the 99 cent app, but there's stilly plenty of magic to be had for a quarter.

Aurich Lawson

The arcade industry is dead in the United States—everyone knows it—done in by a combination of rapidly advancing home consoles and rapidly expanding suburbanization in the late '80s and early '90s. The only people not in on this bit of conventional wisdom are the ones who happen to be opening a surprising number of successful new arcades around the country.

Adam Pratt, who runs industry website Arcade Heroes when he isn't managing his own arcade in West Valley City, Utah, tracked at least 12 major, dedicated, independent US arcades opening their doors in 2011, with 10 more opening so far this year. That might not be enough to rival numbers from the golden age of arcades, but it's a notable expansion from the years before.

"I have missed plenty of locations, but despite that, there really has been an increase over the past two years or so," Pratt told me. "News occasionally comes along of a place closing, but it is far outweighed by openings." And almost all of these locations are thriving, based on what Pratt has been hearing.

Could the trend continue? "I guarantee you're going to see at least two or three [arcades] in every city in this country within the next 10 to 15 years," said Chris Laporte, founder of Las Vegas arcade Insert Coin(s), which recently announced an expansion to a second location in downtown Minneapolis. "That's because the geeks have inherited the earth. People who grew up on this stuff have now grown up, but they're not really grown-ups, you know what I mean?"

Bar + arcade = Barcade

Classic arcade games might seem like a tough sell in the middle of the glitz and glamor of Vegas, but in the 15 months since Insert Coin(s) opened, Laporte said the location has grown to fill its 298-person capacity every night—and often has 45 minutes lines to get in. Those customers aren't just there for the arcade games, though. The Fremont street location also offers a full-service bar (with table service that includes loaner systems ranging from the NES to the Xbox 360), a DJ-equipped dance floor, events like a Halloween costume contest, and frequent musical guests including De La Soul and Talib Kweli.

Expanding from a pure arcade into what Laporte calls "interactive nightlife" is an economic necessity. "As a businessman, you really have to supplement [the arcade machines] with another form of entertainment," he said. "You're not going to make money off of a dollar of credit. You're not going to pay the rent with that... I'm buying refurbished machines for $1,500 to $2,000 a pop. New machines with new technology, you're looking at eight to 12 grand—how are you making your money back on that? Financially, it's difficult to do it in and of itself because the popularity isn't there yet, but I can see it coming."

That's a perspective shared by Doug Marks, who recently opened the Emporium bar/arcade in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood after seeing the success his brother had managing Brooklyn's Barcade. "What makes us unique is the games—they're fun and people still play them. But after a while, if you don't have a good bar, you're not going to have people keep coming back," he said. "I think it could even be more important to get the bar aspect right than the arcade aspect, because it has to be a place people enjoy going for more than one reason. After a while they've played all the games... but if it's a place they know they can get as good a beer as any place in the city and [also] play games, then that's what makes it stand out."

That doesn't mean Emporium's customers treat the games as an afterthought to the alcohol, though. "We could be completely full to capacity and all of our tables will be open—no one is at the tables because everyone is out playing games," Marks said. "Any other bar I've ever been to in my life, the tables are the prime real estate, not the games.

"One of the messages we get from a lot of the people that are here is that they've never been to a bar where people are so happy before. It's a very laid back, fun atmosphere where people are just running around with big smiles on their faces playing any games they can get hands on because they're just having a good time."

But the recent boom in arcade openings isn't just among places that use games as an excuse to serve alcohol. "Our intention was more to be a resource for young people in the community," said Jeromy Darling, who opened ZAP arcade in the Minneapolis suburb of Jordan as a way to keep the town's young people occupied. "There's really nothing for youth there. There's a water tower, a lake, a creek... it's small. That was really our intention when we opened, to be a safe resource for kids, to offer something in the community that was just sort of cheap fun."

Instead of quarters, ZAP charges customers a $5 door fee that grants unlimited play for the entire day, along with $15 monthly memberships that Darling compared to "going to the gym." The idea is to give parents a place they can feel comfortable leaving their children while they go out and do something on their own. "I don't necessarily want to be a babysitter, but... you can trust kids to be safe here, and they can stay and play."

148 Reader Comments

Nice article. Shining example of how the "best posts" feature can be used in a really cool way. Very pleasant surprise.

Yeah, I dunno that we'll pile them up like that all that often, but it seemed like a cool way to make a running list of reader suggested arcades. Glad you liked it, I'm still keeping an eye on this thread for a least a bit more to add any others.

It also provides a nice counter-point to the article which is very heavy on arcade-themed venues, rather than most of the comments that are actually just arcades.

Star Worlds Arcade in Dekalb, IL. Open since 1985 and the best arcade in the world. Walking in is like seeing history; old posters and pictures adorn the walls, including a lot of Twin Galaxies memorabilia.

Games range from Donkey Kong to Dance Dance Revolution to a PlayChoice 10, with games changing constantly to keep people coming back. SWA also has multiple pinball tables that are right there and not make you have to walk down the street to a nondescript building to play (like the Galloping Ghost).A lot of influential people go there too. I’ve met Walter Day (founder of Twin Galaxies) and Eugene Jarvis (creator of Defender, Robotron: 2084, NARC, Smash TV, and the Cruisin’ series) and a lot of other influential people in the arcade gaming world.

Pat and Glenn are super nice people and know how to run an arcade. A game breaks, it’s fixed quickly or replaced. If a game isn’t being played, they replace it with something that will be. Tournaments are run with prizes all the time, and big events where games are on free play, though uncommon, are a treat.

It’s only $5 for 30 tokens, which can last you a long time in there. Only one or two tokens for most games, four for driving games, six for DDR. Plus you’re not having to feel like you have to stay all day because you paid the entrance fee; you can play out your tokens one night, and come back the next day and play another five, and you’ve spent three times less money than at an arcade like the Galloping Ghost.

If you’re ever in northern Illinois, you NEED to go there. You’d be doing yourself a disservice not to. The place is a piece of history and still making it too.

I was surprised when I was up at Springfield Mall (DC area) a year ago and still saw Time Out there, considering virtually every other place I used to hit up there is long gone.

While it's a more contemporary, console-oriented twist, Spotsylvania Mall in Fredericksburg, VA has GamePad.

The Time Out in the Springfield Mall may still be there (it was a month or two ago), but they're gutting that entire mall, so it won't be there for long. If it is still open, it's one of a handfull (like 5-10) stores still there.

Good article. Glad to know these places are coming back as a kind of niche entertainment option.

Emporium in Wicker Park is nice. However, they are limited in having only 30 machines or so and it seems like 5 are broken everytime I go there.

I have to give props to an arcade I went to in the Brookfield suburb of Chicago called Galloping Ghost Arcade. They had 150 machines and a pinball room all for $15 play-all-day. I got to play some machines I hadn't seen in decades. My friends and I had a blast and we would go again easily. The only negative is that they don't have any alcohol to sell but plenty of soft drinks and other snacks. It's not designed to be an Emporium or Insert Coin disco.

Thank you for that. I hardly ever get into the city as I live in the south suburbs, but Brookfield is really close enough to home to consider giving a look at, especially if they actually have pinball. I could kill an afternoon playing as long as they had kept up their machines in good playing condition, unlike places like Dave and Busters, that tend to not put much into keeping the pinball machines in good working order, if they have any at all.

They do have pinball. Call ahead as I hear the room isn't open every day.

They had a ton of machines old and new and 98% was in good to perfect condition, IMO. There were a couple with some clunkyness due to age and parts. Frontline, for example, with that rotating button was a bit kludgey and Afterburner wasn't working properly but they just got it nad hadn't fully repiared it.

The people there seem to keep everything up. It wasn't a glitzy place but it was clean, fucntional, and freindly and it defnitely brought me back to the old days.

I've been feeling like there's a resurgence for a while now, especially in pinball. We were down to just one manufacturer for ages, and now a new one (JJP) as well as at least two others (one in the UK and one by a former designer) have sprouted up.

The reasoning about the current uncertain times and the psychology of wanting to go back to a comforting childhood memory rang very strong and very true to me. If it's true that there's a resurgence going on, and I hope it is, thank goodness for all those collectors out there who kept the machines from our childhoods alive and well during the dark days.

$5 door fee is the way to go, quarter a play will make make you question why you came.

This x 1000000.

Over the years we have had many retro arcades open and close. Paying .50 and some even 1.25 a game was ridiculous. $5 all you can play would have been awesome. I would love to sit around and play pinball all day long. I would guess they have rules of not hogging machines?

Does anyone remember Star Wars arcade which was drawn in wireframe 3D where you had to take down the Death Star? Aw man those were the days...

I play that one in Barcade, JC, all the time. It's the sit-in model too.

That was one of my absolute favorites along with rampage.And Mach 3 (had to love the pseudo sim). And spy hunter.

Heck, as a kid, any game standing in the corner of the convenience store was my favorite game.

I felt the downfall of the arcades was when the games turned into too many "insert coin to continue". It seemed the games fell off in popularity from then as they just got hard to the point that you had a suspicious feeling it was just metering your play and metering your play.

This wasn't until the very late 80s or maybe even early 90s and during the sunset of the arcade era, so I'm not sure which is more likely to be the causation. It makes me wonder though whether micro-transactions won't turn into the same thing: The kid with the deepest pockets has the high score.

Ah awesome. Makes me think back on the days my brother and I would carefully choose which games to spend our meager quarters on during our infrequent visits to the local mall in the rural Midwest. I'm glad people are keeping the good times alive.

I just hope they haven't missed the boat with all the other options for playing classic arcade games coming into maturity (MAME, Xbox 360 Arcade, etc). A lot of the would-be die-hard fans of these barcades have probably already pursued these other options and so they already have a way to get their arcade fix. Still, the barcade is the superior option because of the social aspects, but they probably could have been more successful if they had beat this competition to market.

Quick word about the console and smartphone setups: those of us who are MAME and arcade restoration hobbyists usually want the commercial-grade stuff that can take a public pounding. Gamepads, touch screens, and little buttons just won't cut it.

A shining example that was mentioned in these comments already: the 1983 Star Wars arcade game with vector-based graphics. First of all, the twisty-yoke controller isn't easy to get for a home setup. You either modify a controller from the original cab, you make one yourself (one plan was PVC pipe and I think you still need parts from an original controller), or you get a custom made one, which cost a decent chunk of cash-- something like 165US$ last I checked, and there's only one company that does it, too. Then there's the vector graphics. If you remember the old vector monitors well, or at least you've used an oscilloscope, you understand that most computer monitors, which focus on raster-based images just does NOT give the same look. Vector monitors are really difficult to get a hold of now.

There are some really great companies, some that will give you prebuilt stuff, and some that will give you parts. Some of the original equipment manufacturers are still out there; Suzo-Happ is one. But it's really hard to replicate everything at home, even if you've got deep pockets and a big budget. (Even the best modular setup I saw didn't cover all the controller setups I remember.) And don't get me wrong-- I've seen some really sweet custom cab designs for home setups-- but it's still tough to match all the designs out there that do make the difference for some games.

I think there are some of us who would rather go out somewhere and play hard on something we can't (or haven't yet) set up at home. YES there is a strong nostalgia factor for many of us. And while locales with booze is pretty much where the original video arcade games started, some of us enjoy getting our kids to cut their teeth on these games like we did. (My daughter's got a good start.) Appreciate those who are listing "just arcades" here (yes, I had the pleasure of visiting Pinball Pete's in AA) and hopefully more will come because where I live, it's either home, or Chuck E. Cheese if I take my kids along.

A shining example that was mentioned in these comments already: the 1983 Star Wars arcade game with vector-based graphics. First of all, the twisty-yoke controller isn't easy to get for a home setup. You either modify a controller from the original cab, you make one yourself (one plan was PVC pipe and I think you still need parts from an original controller), or you get a custom made one, which cost a decent chunk of cash-- something like 165US$ last I checked, and there's only one company that does it, too.

Would like to thank all who commented and gave advice of locations that need to be added to the list.

This has been a feature that has reverberated round the internet, and has encouraged us at The Stinger Report to write a more detailed and focused feature for the amusement trade on this emerging aspect of the video game experience.

If you would like to have other venues around America considered please let me know.

Would like to thank all who commented and gave advice of locations that need to be added to the list.

This has been a feature that has reverberated round the internet, and has encouraged us at The Stinger Report to write a more detailed and focused feature for the amusement trade on this emerging aspect of the video game experience.

If you would like to have other venues around America considered please let me know.

(It's no longer for sale, this an archived site, ignore any "buy" buttons, they just lead to disappointment.)

Anybody that says "But MAME already simulates vector games on a standard monitor..." has never seen a real vector monitor, 'cause if you had, you'd be embarrassed to utter those words!

We were talking about Battlezone, because the Bradley Trainer version used a prototype controller that became the Star Wars one. He also mentioned California Extreme, which is an arcade convention, basically, e.g. enthusiasts DO like to go out and play some of the obscure stuff, get reacquainted with the hidden gems, etc. (@kevinw729: so does http://www.caextreme.org/ count?)

Having been to Shorty's, Barcade, Ground Kontrol and Insert Coins, I must say that this is a trend I am firmly in support of. I grew up a die-hard arcade fanatic-- like spent all my time and money at the local Aladdin's Castle (with the occasional jaunts to the comic book shop and Taco John's, both located within 100 feet) in my mall until I was like 13, and then ended up playing a few games religiously, like Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 1 & 2, to the point that I would bike across town to play at the spots where the best people in town hung out so that I could compete against them.

For some reason, though, I just never really made the transition into a "gamer." I played games like Doom, Dune 2, etc. at one point and owned a few consoles back in the day and enjoyed them, but the last game I spent any serious amount of time playing at home was probably Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on my PS2. Having said that, I still love video games, but I really think that the social aspect of arcades, plus the appeal of dedicated hardware and such, is what really drew me into it. It would be great if America could get anywhere near the point of a country like Korea, where arcades are still a primary destination for young people, though I don't really see that happening anytime soon.

Another place that people need to check out is the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. It's 10,000 square feet of primarily pinball games with some arcade games thrown in, about 200 machines total, but they're all reasonably priced, kept in pretty damn good condition and the place is legally registered as a charity! Pretty awesome. http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

Another place that people need to check out is the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. It's 10,000 square feet of primarily pinball games with some arcade games thrown in, about 200 machines total, but they're all reasonably priced, kept in pretty damn good condition and the place is legally registered as a charity! Pretty awesome. http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

Oh yes, that is on our to-do list for sure! And that place has one of the only TWO prototype machines of a game called Pinball Circus (http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=4354) that were ever made. And you can PLAY IT. Crazy.

Great article, I also greatly missed the arcades of my younger years, but i disagree on needing alcohol to make for a great time, and i refused to give up on arcades, My family and I would look for them whenever we went on any vacations , but alas it seemed like this article may have been correct, they were almost all gone, and we had a heck of a time finding any. The ones we did find were very scarce and only had a few games usually in hotel lobbies. So after much frustration and not finding any in our own hometown, i got fed up and decided to open my own, take a gander let me know what you guys think

We were voted best arcade in S. florida and continue to gain fans, and we are doing it without alcohol and most of the machines are set to 1 or 2 tokens each, we are also the only arcade anywhere that rotates games in to the arcade on a monthly basis,

and if you want to see how we went from console and arcade collecting to a full blown arcade check out this link.

There is no beer or food, just some guys that collect arcade machines and make them avaialable for everyone to play. Their current location is in an old mall arcade. They rotate the games and even have tournaments.

There is a place in Atlanta called Battle and Brew. Instead of traditional arcade games, they set up big screens with consoles all over the place and lots of social games. You rent them by the hour. It works really well, especially when you want to hang out with a group.

I live near Battle & Brew, it's great place to go in a group, playing Rock Band on a stage is amusing. I've been a few times just try a new game, since rentals went the way of the original arcade. You can buy time on their computers to play current PC games, too, like an internet cafe.http://battleandbrew.com/

A place that's more in line with what this arcade was discussing is Joystick. It's downtown, I haven't made it out yet, but I've heard good things.http://www.joystickgamebar.com/

I recently visited a place called [spam link removed by moderator] in Dayton Ohio. I am new to the area and have never seen any entertainment facility quite like this one. The Laser Tag facility was huge and a ton of fun. Definitely recommend this place to anyone around the area.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.